Monday, November 20, 2006

6 comments:

undercover black man
said...

Believe it or not, I think Bill O'Reilly, of all people, deserves a big bunch of credit for this. I wondered what the repercussions would be for O'Reilly to hammer his corporate overlords at NewsCorp. over this O.J. deal. And O'Reilly hammered hard, and relentlessly. He declared it a cultural abomination, he called for a boycott of advertisers.

Yeah, O'Reilly is easy to make fun of. (SNL did a good job of it the other night.) But he was on the side of the angels this time. And he's earned the right to crow triumphantly... which he no doubt will, a few hours from now.

They should fill the time with a live shot of Judith Regan writing "I Will Not Try to Profit from a Sensational Murder Case" over and over on a big chalkboard until the time's up. It wouldn't work, but it'd be good to see.

I've already blogged to death on this at Zap2it, but I don't think FOX ever intended to air this special, or at the very least, it was a special that the broadcasting people were perfectly happy *not* to air. Nobody knew this thing existed until last week and then they pull it within a week with with a week to go til air? They didn't even put up a fight. There wasn't a single statement from Ligouri or Beckman swearing that even with all the protests, they were going to show the special and let the viewers decide. Nothing. They put it out there and then minute there was any heat, they pulled it back. I think that things are just so desperate at FOX that they had to try some desperate pre-Idol measures. Mike Darnell must have hoped that people would be disgusted-but-curious. Instead, they were disgusted-and-angry. But FOX got the pulse of things in an instant and no time was wasted. So yeah, O'Reilly and his lot had something to do with it, but it was rigged. FOX never intended to go to the matresses for an OJ special...

"I've already blogged to death on this at Zap2it, but I don't think FOX ever intended to air this special, or at the very least, it was a special that the broadcasting people were perfectly happy *not* to air."

Daniel wrote: "There wasn't a single statement from Ligouri or Beckman swearing that even with all the protests, they were going to show the special and let the viewers decide."

Keep in mind, Dan, the BOOK was cancelled also. With no book, what use is the TV special? This whole deal was a corporate-synergy circle jerk, driven in no way by the programming prerogatives of Fox Broadcasting.

News Corp. got its tit caught in a wringer, and I'm sure Ligouri and all the FBN execs are breathing a sigh of relief.